7/15/18 Eracism Minute
Good morning. I’m Lauralee Carbone, here to present a weekly eracism minute, a minute of consciousness-raising on behalf of the BUF Black Lives Matter Ministry Action Team. Eracism is defined as the removal from existence of the belief that one race is superior to another.
I’m going to present a poem by Audre Lorde: a black, feminist, lesbian, warrior, mother, author, poet. In her poem she speaks of intersectionality, the overlapping discrimination of racism, heteronormativism, sexism, ageism, ablism, and classism. See if you can pick all these “isms” out. For clarification, she refers to Nedicks, which is sort of like the Denny’s of the east coast.
Who Said It Was Simple
There are so many roots to the tree of anger
that sometimes the branches shatter
before they bear.
Sitting in Nedicks
the women rally before they march
discussing the problematic girls
they hire to make them free.
An almost white counterman passes
a waiting brother to serve them first
and the ladies neither notice nor reject
the slighter pleasures of their slavery.
But I who am bound by my mirror
as well as my bed
see causes in colour
as well as sex
and sit here wondering
which me will survive
all these liberations.
